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Blogs Eric Reads
Post-Turkey Update
- Oh, Bill Kristol. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone even publishes anything you say anymore. Yesterday, you wrote that Still-President Bush should not only pardon torturers and NSA wiretappers, but give them the Medal of Freedom as well. Congratulations! You managed to find the complete opposite of accountability. (Weekly Standard via Andrew Sullivan)
- Meanwhile, one of the soon-to-be Medal of Freedom-winners who actually was an Air Force interrogator in Iraq says that American torture has been a successful recruiting tool for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The greatest accomplishment of America’s torture policy is that it has killed thousands of American soldiers. Hardly worthy of the Medal of Freedom. (Washington Post)
- Washington University political scientist Steven Smith notes that the Constitution places final authority over who is elected to the Senate in the hands of the Senate. That means the Senate could reverse the state canvassing board’s decision not to count disputed absentee ballots, a move that could shift the recount in Al Franken’s favor. Time to watch the “strict constructionists” freak out because something in the Constitution benefits Democrats. (UPI)
- And over in the other remaining Senate race, Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss still won’t admit that we’re in a recession. The Federal Reserve and 96% of economists surveyed by the National Association of Business Economists say we’re in a recession, but all Saxby Chambliss can come up with is a botched definition. Please, oh please, can we kick this guy out of Congress on Tuesday. (ThinkProgress/Los Angeles Times/MarketWatch)
Kristol: “Ambivalent on Torture”
By now it’s no secret that the American people just can’t get a straight answer from the Bush Administration on whether or not waterboarding is torture, but the answer we do get isn’t usually as blunt as what Bill Kristol said on “A Daily Show” last night:
I’m ambivalent on torture, I’ve got to say. I’m a bit of a squish on torture. I respect Senator McCain and he says it’s unwise and unnecessary and wrong for the U.S. to do. On the other hand, it does seem that the three people who seem to have been waterboarded, gave up, perhaps, very important information that may have prevented further attacks. So I think it would be a tough call, if you, one were in a position of responsibility, in all honesty.
He’s ambivalent on whether or not we should be torturing people. It’s not even the “question” of waterboarding, this is straight-up, however-you-define-it torture! The thing that resulted in the convictions of Japanese soldiers after World War II. The thing that ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor’s son is being tried for right now. This is what Bill Kristol thinks about and says, “Golly gee, I’m just not sure what to do!”
As for his defense, with which Supreme Court “Justice” Antonin Scalia agrees, that waterboarding has produced evidence that has prevented terror attacks, even the FBI isn’t sure if the evidence obtained from Abu Zubaida (one of the three men the CIA admits to waterboarding) is reliable. Terrorism experts have been saying for years that torturing suspects “often produces false information because people subjected to waterboarding will tell their interrogators anything to stop it,” and even Colin Powell has said that using torture “would put our soldiers at risk.” If Bill Kristol is so sure that he supports our troops, how is he still “ambivalent” on torture?